Silent Grove: The Epilogue

The grove ... is gaining its peace.

Hmm? Not really sensing anything, but sure...

Is someone humming a song...?

Erm, did you hear something strange? Sounds like a path has just been opened...

Really?! We gotta look for it! Go, go, go!

Hahaha! All the lights are on!

Are you a ... secret hermit master?

My dear lady, can you kindly let us through? There's a broken machine that needs to be repaired. How about we set you up nearby?

Friggin' hell. Is she playing deaf? You Wulingers have less manners than we do!

Can this be...? Hmm ... she looks quite familiar...

You —! Yes, I'm talking to you. You stand apart. An entity who walks with them all, yet held aloof from the crowd.

You see a tree — Is the tree truly a tree?

Hmph.

Hmm...

HAHAHAHA...

So, I guess ... we can go ahead and fix the machine?

What a strange old lady...

Eyed the grove, you did. Through the grove, you walked.

Yeah... I guess that's how we got here.

So, why then, does the bamboo sway?

Yeah...

Turns out the bugs were just affected by a malfunctioning machine.

Hahahaha...

Hey, what are you trying to do, dear lady?

Why ... treadeth thou ... on Talos-II?

Ha! Why else? Because we were born here, raised here. This dirt's in our bones!

W-wait! No, that's wrong! Since I was a child, I've been taught that Terra is our home! We're not like these grovenymphs... We're outsiders here... Talos-II was never ours to begin with...

Bamboo stays bamboo, man stays man, the worm just worms. All is as it began.

Terrans! Once they performed the exact same trials of wave frequencies! 'Twas burdenbeast behavior they seek to elucidate.

Burdenbeasts and grovenymphs are vastly different species. However! They responded remarkably similar when influenced by waves of certain frequencies.

Hmm. I suddenly remembered who that weird old lady is... I think she's some super old Tianshi who's also really into the sciences of Talosian biology.

It was over a decade ago... The old lady's the one who named the cute little pantailbeasts. She was also the primary investigator of the fixed wave emitter project.

Then she retired and became a hermit. I can't believe we actually ran into her.

Wow. She's also the one who wrote A Study of Grovenymphs in Different Seasons... That means she actually spent years working on a project ... that she practically knew everything about...!

I guess that's a true scientist from the last generation... They would do anything to prove an esoteric point.

I don't know nothing about that scientific mumbo-jumbo you just said! I just wanna know if I can dig my nymphsprouts safely, aight?!

That's the only good news we need!

Seems he went back. Mumbling something about 'changing careers' and 'studying his origins'... You know, the usual post-grove existential crisis.

Eh? Well... when you think about it, he definitely was way too jumpy for this job.

That means, Captain Mi Fu is gonna miss one reliable assistant!

Anyhoo... We've all made it safe and sound. Seems like peace has once again returned to the grove...